‘The Breakfast Club’ Met For the First Time 31 Years Ago Today

Today marks the 31st anniversary of the day — March 24, 1984 — that The Breakfast Club first met: that would be the day that characters from John Hughes' beloved teen classic were all stuck in detention together. And although at first glance this group of teens had nothing in common, they bonded over the course of that special Saturday, learning that they couldn't be defined by the labels they chose for themselves (or the ones that had been chosen for them) in the world of petty high school politics.

As you'll recall, the cast of the film was populated by the Brat Pack, including Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, Emilio Estevez, Judd Nelson, and Ally Sheedy, all playing a specific stereotype, sentenced to detention — but over the course of that Saturday morning they discover that they have much more in common than outward appearances suggest.

Hall played Brian, the brainy one, and at the end of the film he writes a letter to Mr. Vernon, the principal who stuck them all together and tasked them with writing a report on what they learned while in detention. Here's his final summary:

Saturday, March 24th, 1984.
Shermer High School, Shermer, lllinois. 60062.
Dear Mr Vernon,
We accept that we had to sacrifice Saturday in detention for what we did. What we did was wrong. But you're crazy to make us write an essay about who we think we are. What do you care? You see us as you want to see us, in the simplest terms and most convenient definitions. You see us as a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess and a criminal. Correct? That's how we saw each other at 7:00 this morning. We were brainwashed.